Gimmicks in motorsports. (where) will it stop?

[itannum990]

A pet hate is gimmicky, lowest common denominator, crowd pleasing, brand-dilluting artificially dramatised 'revolutions'.

More and more championships are picking these up, bsb showdown, nascar chase, f1 drs (and fake eco bullcrap) formula e insert-list-here (and what's the point of greenifying f1 in the same year as this starts??) Success ballast, boost restrictions, open vs factory rules (motogp) 1000 yard '1/4 mile' etc ect etc.

It's not new, I know that. It is however getting worse, and more and more common. Last year's bsb's champion won purely because of the daft rules (ironically I'm happy, being a bigger fan of Lowes than Shakey, but that's beside the point no?) It surely can't attract new viewers to series's if there are so many quirks that are near impenetrable to the casual and sometimes experienced fan to understand?

Formula 1 is perhaps the worst for this, race fueling in, then out, then in again, than out again, grooved slicks - failed experiments that the fans new shouldn't happen but did anyway, this year's producing excellent racing but at what cost?

I do not understand why the is such a need for constant meddling, innovation yes, progress yes, but the meddling in motorsport is reaching EU like scales, merely increasing cost and complexity whilst reducing the appeal to fans new/seasoned alike. What do the drivers, engineers and team members think of it? Who benefits? How far will it go before we all just turn it off like a daytime tv gameshow?

[Alex Langheck]

When sports start coming up with silly suggestions, you know they in trouble, and/or the organisers are clueless how to run it.
How much more of a laughing stock can they make the various Motorsport series? They are simply clueless.
Stop trying to cater for the 'casual' fans of the sport - and concentrate on your 'hard core'. How often do the most successful sports keep changing their fomats/ rules? There is a reason that football is the number 1 sport - it's remained virtually the same; and if there are teams that dominate - TOUGH!! Get on with it - they're not handicapped to help the lesser teams catch up.

[37chevy]

this is why I like drag racing and bike racing more and more...theres no gimmicks, no success ballast, equalising of cars/bikes, no drs, ers etc etc, just flat out, loud, bad ass racing, best man or woman wins..theres no need for gimmicks if you get the rules package and formula right in the first place

personally i don't want to see environmentally friendly racing, race cars that share technology with road cars, i want to see loud, bad ass cars with tonnes of BHP, racing on the edge...

[itannum990]

37chevy said:

this is why I like drag racing and bike racing more and more...theres no gimmicks, no success ballast, equalising of cars/bikes, no drs, ers etc etc, just flat out, loud, bad ass racing, best man or woman wins..theres no need for gimmicks if you get the rules package and formula right in the first place

personally i don't want to see environmentally friendly racing, race cars that share technology with road cars, i want to see loud, bad ass cars with tonnes of BHP, racing on the edge...

Motogp being restricted to less and less fuel year on year, factory vs open tyres, ecu's tank capacities.. superbikes always making allowances for ducatis, showdown bullocks like i said, bike's aren't immune at all I'm afraid.

Drag is possibly mostly the last pure(ish) genre?

[CrutyRammers]

I suspect it'll never stop tbh.

[kambites]

Motorsport has been about artificial limitations since cars have been able to move faster than walking pace. I can't see it stopping any time soon. Ultimately sports are run as businesses, their primary aim is to make money for their backers. If you want to see less "gimmicky" motorsport, just go down to your local track and watch some grass-roots type amateur racing where money isn't involved.

Edited by kambites on Thursday 18th September 13:34

[itannum990]

kambites said:

Motorsport has been about artificial limitations since cars have been able to move faster than walking pace. I can't see it stopping any time soon.

I'll give you that. Restrictions/rules/formula create the classes. I fear that spurious 'artificial limitations' however are being scattered unnecessarily and without enough thought for the consequences.

[wildman0609]

kambites said:

money isn't involved.

Edited by kambites on Thursday 18th September 13:34

LOL


I just wish they'd remove BOP, let the best manufacturer with the best engineered car win.

[Eric Mc]

itannum990 said:

I'll give you that. Restrictions/rules/formula create the classes. I fear that spurious 'artificial limitations' however are being scattered unnecessarily and without enough thought for the consequences.

Don't forget that in 1911, the fitting of a rear view mirror to an Indycar was claimed to be a "spurious artficial aid".

[entropy]

itannum990 said:

I do not understand why the is such a need for constant meddling, innovation yes, progress yes, but the meddling in motorsport is reaching EU like scales, merely increasing cost and complexity whilst reducing the appeal to fans new/seasoned alike. What do the drivers, engineers and team members think of it? Who benefits? How far will it go before we all just turn it off like a daytime tv gameshow?

Viewing figures, be it TV or attendance.

NASCAR attendance and TV viewership have been dropping in fact the numbers is so bad that NASCAR don't publish official attendance figures anymore because tracks can look half empty these days

F1 has a core demographic is the over 30s/medium-high income whereas it is struggling to attract young audience, TV viewing numbers have recently gone down - Sky likely to blame

Running sport is like running a business - always looking for a larger slice of the pie.

[poppopbangbang]

entropy said:

Viewing figures, be it TV or attendance.

NASCAR attendance and TV viewership have been dropping in fact the numbers is so bad that NASCAR don't publish official attendance figures anymore because tracks can look half empty these days

F1 has a core demographic is the over 30s/medium-high income whereas it is struggling to attract young audience, TV viewing numbers have recently gone down - Sky likely to blame

Running sport is like running a business - always looking for a larger slice of the pie.

Exactly. Many people confuse pro motorsport for an actual sport when what it actually is a collection of very quickly moving billboards which allow a great deal of static billboards and branding to exist around them. For the teams their billboard needs to be as far up as possible in the competition to get it's advertisers maximum exposure and therefore secure the teams income. For the organisers/controlling body they need to generate as much awareness, scandal and media buzz as possible around the mobile billboards to ensure they can acquire advertisers and therefore compete and to ensure the static billboards and branding they place on circuit also recieve the maximum exposure possible.

This game isn't free, someone needs to pay for it and if we keep it the same year in/year out then those who view it would quickly fade away. Just look at the boost in popularity of F1 from a rule change and a German/British driver fall out at the front!

[AlexS]

wildman0609 said:

LOL


I just wish they'd remove BOP, let the best manufacturer with the best engineered car win.

And then you would have GT racing with no competitors and most manufacturers don't have cars which are suitable for racing and therefore, no matter how much money was spent, they wouldn't be competitive.

[thatdude]

I'm not keen on the showdown in BSB, although I have warmed to it and see the bigger picture now. One of te things I do like about it is that a less-well off team could run a bike which will get a rider in the top 6, and then for the final three rounds run a better bike which they otherwise couldnt afford to run over the season.

The MotoGP classes are like that, I believe, to encourage more teams to the grid (it has) and also it is the beginning of a change to a different way of running the class (open ECU etc). It initially looked like open class could stick with the factory class...but that transpires as 2 or 3 laps (good job aleix espagaro) until the softer option tyre is killed off (sometimes having a softer tyre is not the best solution)

In F1, I dont like DRS. I did like KERs, because that could be deployed whereever and it introduced a new tactical angle.

Edited by thatdude on Wednesday 24th September 13:00